View full sizeMarvin Fong, The Plain DealerThe new Fulton Road Bridge in Cleveland, shown in June when work continued, is to reopen on July 9.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The new Fulton Road Bridge will reopen on July 9, more than 3½ years after the old, deteriorated span was closed.

Residents of Old Brooklyn and the general public are invited to an official ribbon-cutting at 10 a.m. The $47.8 million bridge will open to traffic, pedestrians and bicyclists around noon.

The event will not be as elaborate as the six days of celebrations when the original bridge opened Aug. 9, 1932. Those festivities, which featured parades and the Goodyear blimp Defiance, drew about 50,000 people each day. But the new bridgehas been eagerly awaited, especially by nearby businesses that usually rely on passing traffic.

The arch bridge spans the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and visitors have watched with interest as it rose above the Big Creek Valley.

In a nod to the zoo,the Ohio Department of Transportation used animal-related themes in a news release Wednesdayto describe the bridge, which will carry about 23,300 vehicles a day.

It weighs 46,500 tons, or the approximate weight of 9,300 female African elephants. It is 1,583 feet long - the length of 122 adult boa constrictors laid end-to-end and is 110 feet tall, as tall as seven giraffes stacked hoof-to-horn, ODOT said.

The original bridge had deteriorated to such an extent around 1997 that three metal canopies were installed in and near the zoo to protect visitors from falling concrete. Two of the four lanes of traffic were closed several years later and the bridge itself was closed in October, 2006. It was demolished in April, 2007.

Its replacement, at the request of neighborhood leaders and other officials, looks similar and cost about $10 million more than a standard bridge. It includes four traffic lanes, and a bike lane and sidewalk on each side.

The new bridge was originally scheduled to open a year ago, but bad weather andasbestos found in the deck led to construction delays.

ODOT is the project manager, at the request of Cuyahoga County, which maintains the city-owned bridge. The project is being paid for by a combination of federal, state, county and city money.

Minor work beneath the structure, including construction of a shared-use path from Denison Avenue into the valley, will continue this summer, ODOT said.

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